9/11 Birthdays

Today is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. This is still so painful to watch. I found an interesting story in USAToday about a woman named Dahlia Gruen of Boston, Massachusetts whose Birthday happens to be September 11. She was 10 years old when the tragedy happened and turned 20 this year. Dahlia and the other Virgos mentioned in the article spent years stuggling to celebrate their Birthdays because it is so associated with grief. Dahlia decided to do something about this. She's a Virgo afterall with Sun trining Uranus-Neptune in Capricorn. That would bestow great maturity and management abilities. So she created a website with her Father for these people to contact each other and celebrate with each other on such a complicated day.

The name of the website is birthdayspirit.org.

The name of the article is "Were you born on Sept. 11? Join the deeply conflicted club. Website helps 9/11 birthday folks commiserate -- and celebrate." by Maureen Linke.

It starts out with Dahlia describing her 10th Birthday:

"'I got home and saw my parents on the steps and I was excited, thinking they were home for my birthday,' say Gruen, now 19, of Boston. 'They sat me down and explained what had happened, and I began to realize my birthday wouldn't ever be the same.'"

I took a very quick look at the charts of the people mentioned in the article. They are all women but of different ages. The connections between their charts is really amazing. I concentrated on placements of Venus and the Sun as those are the planets which would be most connected with celebration. The Sun rules the sign of Leo which rules Celebrations. The Solar Return literally is a person's annual Birthday. Venus rules Love and enjoyment. Since all people born on this date with have the same placement of the Sun, looking at Venus's placement also gives a little more information.

For one, it just wasn't a good day for a celebration as the Sun at 19 Virgo was squaring a really difficult opposition between Saturn 15 Gemini and Pluto 13 Sagittarius-Chiron 24 Sagittarius. As far as Solar Returns go, this was the Solar Return from Hell. Saturn and Pluto are often considered the "Heavies" of the horoscope. When working together in difficult ways such as this they bring loss and grief. People who have these planets in combination in their charts are often very strong people because they have this knowledge "built into their spirits."

It turns out that all 4 women mentioned in the article have very strong Venus/Pluto connections. Pluto rules the sign of Scorpio which is connected with deep dark mysteries of life, like huge crises. (It also rules Sex and you know so it has it's good points). The whole reason Pluto exists is to give people richness and depth of spirit. Often he makes things complicated through crises. An old Tarot card teacher of mine said that usually Scorpios, people whose Sun is ruled by Pluto, never have to have dull lives because things just get thrown into their paths.

Two of the women, Dahlia and Barbara Lazar were very close to having their Venus Returns in Leo that year. Leo is ruled by the Sun which rules celebrations. Venus in Leos love to have their parties. They in particular would have been in the mood to enjoy their birthdays.

It's interesting also to see Venus Rx by progression in some of the charts. Dahlia was born with Venus Rx in Leo and it stationed direct about a year after she was born. Jennifer Sumner's Venus went Rx around 2004. These show some sort of in depth lessons on being and giving love in one's life.

Here are the birth dates along with a couple of notes. Hope I've calculated the years correctly. I'm feeling a little woozy so hope I've got everyone's name correct. There is a lot more to study here but for today I think we need to just pay attention to the planets associated with having a party. Hope everybody on the website has blown out all the candles on their cakes this year and will see all their wishes fulfilled this year.

Dahlia Gruen
b. Sept. 11, 1991 (Boston MA?)

Sun 18 Virgo; Venus 22 Leo Rx

Venus squares n. Pluto 19 Scorpio

At Age 10 would have been going through her first Nodal Axis opposition, an aspect associated with the life path and feeling that one's world is turned upside down. This year she has just completed her Nodal Return which is a time of finding one's life path.

Jennifer Sumner
b. Sept. 11, 1962 (Montgomery, Alabama?)

Sun 19 Virgo; Venus 5 Scorpio conjunct Neptune 12 Scorpio squaring NN 7 Leo Rx and Saturn 6 Aquarius.

Venus is not in aspect with Pluto but is in his sign in the challenging t-square listed above.

Jennifer was 39 in 2001. Her natal chart has a strong opposition between Uranus and Pluto in Virgo which opposes Jupiter-Chiron in Pisces. This shows a lot of outer planet transit activity as it hooks into the big transits that day. Outer planets show activities that are felt by many people. Most people born in the mid 60s would have been hooked into this shift of having a huge world order shift.

Brenda Warwood
b. Sept. 11, 1958 Brentwood, Tennessee

Sun 19 Virgo; Venus 3 Virgo.

Brenda's Venus is conjunct Pluto 3 Virgo and Mercury 1 Virgo.

At Age 42 Brenda had just completed the 2 big outer planet transits of that age, the Uranus opposition and the Neptune square.

On an even bigger scale, she has a natal Sun-Saturn square (Sun square Saturn 20 Sagittarius) which was getting hit by the Sun-Saturn-Pluto-chiron transit of the day.

Barbara Lazer
b. Sept. 11, 1953 Pittsburgh, PA

Sun 19 Virgo; Venus 15 Leo

Barbara's Venus is conjunct Pluto 22 Leo and Mars 29 Leo.

At Age 48 Barbara would have just completed her 4th Jupiter Return. Wouldn't you know? Her natal Jupiter is at 25 Gemini. It squares her natal Sun-Mercury and trines a natal Saturn-Neptune conjunction 24-25 Libra which is possibly in conjunction with her Moon.